Processing Application ... functionality

freebie

Hi,
I've noticed on some sites, that while an e-commerce transaction is processing, there will be an intermediate page that says "Processing Application .. Please be patient", or something like that. I've tried to replicate this functionality in the following manner.
1.) Page 1 - The form
2.) Page 2 - Tests form validation, redirects back to form if not valid, else puts information in database and forwards to Page 3
3.) Page 3 - opens connection to Verisign or Authorize.net and issues the transaction, and displays transaction results.

On my page 2, I have static html that reads "processing application ... ", but the page redirects to Page 3 before this page even shows.
I know my logic is a little screwed up here, but I'm not quite sure how to go about making this functionality work.

Can anyone offer some suggestions.
Thank you

mtimdog

I'm guessing page 3 would have the static info on it, and have authorize.net redirect to a 4th page.

page 3 would echo the static info, then through php open/pass the variables to the processor?

Something similar is here

paulnaj

Put a javascript in the <BODY> on the static page ...

... that'll re-direct in 5000 ms (5 secs)

Best to add a static link as well, saying ... If you are not re-directed ... blah, blah.

EDIT

Just seen mtimdog's comments ... you can store the info with session variable's without having to pass them from page to page. Have to know a bit more about what you're doing to help you with that though.
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freebie

Hi,
Thank your for your advice.
I did neglect to mention enough information.

Page 1 - the form
Page 2 - put $POST into $SESSION (using array_merge, performs server-side validation (if validation is ok -> put an entry in the database, and get the insert id which gets put into session scope and then a call to header("Location: ... ) to redirect to page 3, else if validation fails then header() redirect back to page 1 and show invalid fields. Page 2 also contains html content which says Processing Application ... (but isn't never shown as I intended). -
Page 3
- Gets certain variables from the SESSION scope and uses payflowpro functions to open a connection to Verisign and post transaction data and get the transaction results. Displays results to user.

My intention was that while Step 3 is processing the application (ie, the Verisign transaction), Step 2 would be displayed to the user, but what happens is that step 1 is displayed until step 3 is finished processing

I've seen some e-commerce applications online that get the user to an intermediate page so that they don't click submit twice (and although it's easy to disable the submit button upon clicking it, the "processing application ... " page has a more professional look.)

Thanks for all suggestions.

ablewebmaster

do a loop, to determine when a certain condition is true or not, like let's say whether or not a certain variable is not defined yet.

Have it say Loading... over and over again. (This would be done in Javascript) and disappear everytime, so you don't have 50 billion loadings on the page. Then when the condition is true, have it exit the loop and display the rest of the page. This would be done on page 3.

If you need me to, I could just whip out the code for you real quick.

Let me know if this helps

:rolleyes:

ablewebmaster

Oh, and also,

You should just combine page 2 and 3, that way its less processing time.